The U.S. struck and destroyed a facility tied to Venezuela used to load drugs onto boats headed out of the country, President Donald Trump said in a radio interview last week.
“They have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” he told interviewer John Catsimatidis on conservative radio station WABC.
Trump confirmed the story Monday when talking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago. “There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs… and that is no longer around.” The president declined to say whether the strike was carried out by the U.S. military, and no further details have yet been released.
The strike would mark the first American action on Venezuelan territory, bringing the U.S. one step closer to open war with the South American country. The Trump Administration has been engaged in an aggressive pressure campaign this year aimed at toppling the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro, who the U.S. has accused of narcoterrorism. Venezuela is currently the target of an American blockade of sanctioned tankers, supported by the largest military deployment the region has seen for decades, including at least one nuclear submarine and a carrier strike group.
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